New features/feature ideas for CM for the next few years thread

[Erwin]

One probably doesn't want LOS from every vehicle - esp those that should never be used for scouting. The current LOS capabilities of the game are very generous.

The big problem is one wants LOS from the primary weapon, not some insignificant crew member when the primary weapon cannot be moved a few inches to also get LOS.

[Baneman]

One probably doesn't want LOS from every vehicle - esp those that should never be used for scouting. ....

Um, that's exactly why I DO want to check LoS from a particular vehicle. To make sure I'm keeping it out of trouble.

eg. I've plotted a route for a truck. Suddenly other units see some enemy moving in a heretofore unoccupied area . Can I click on the truck's waypoints to check if there's a blue line to those areas. No, I have to spuriously plot the same route for a different vehicle ( with a gun ) in order to do this. It's annoying.

The big problem is one wants LOS from the primary weapon, not some insignificant crew member when the primary weapon cannot be moved a few inches to also get LOS.

Certainly agree here.

Also the tank with the Aiming-Firing-( but not actually firing )-Aiming-Firing loop. I had a frikkin blue targeting line FFS - if the main weapon doesn't have LoF, then at least give me the grey one.

[Childress]

Right-click shows elevation in meters.

[cool breeze]

Would it show the actual elevation or elevation based on the editor? It would be cool if it had the actual elevation some how.

Did anyone say anything about making it easier to area fire the ground through grass or whatever? Sometimes it seems kind of weird to me that I can't shoot at an area because the guys can only see the grass not the ground. Id be happy with them shooting at the grass! I guess there needs to be some kind limit on how far you can target into cover... right? Clearly BFC thinks so and ill take their word for a it. But do other people also feel this should be adjusted a little bit to make it easier to place those target area orders onto grass tiles?

[agusto]

Talking about LOS: Steel Armour - Blaze Of War has a cool feature. If you click on a certain vehicle or infantry unit and the click on the "LOS-check" button, all areas the unit has LOS onto are highlighted in, erm, purple IIRC. It looks a bit like the target armour command does in CMx2 2.0.

[Erwin]

"Um, that's exactly why I DO want to check LoS from a particular vehicle. To make sure I'm keeping it out of trouble."

I reckon it would just be too tempting to use em in a recon role. Trucks shouldn't be anywhere near the front line to begin with. If you're using em as if they were AFV's, they are already way too close.

[nachinus]

Talking about LOS: Steel Armour - Blaze Of War has a cool feature. If you click on a certain vehicle or infantry unit and the click on the "LOS-check" button, all areas the unit has LOS onto are highlighted in, erm, purple IIRC. It looks a bit like the target armour command does in CMx2 2.0.

Cool indeed. Very useful!. I have dreamed about something this in CM2 in countless occasions.

[Baneman]

"Um, that's exactly why I DO want to check LoS from a particular vehicle. To make sure I'm keeping it out of trouble."

I reckon it would just be too tempting to use em in a recon role. Trucks shouldn't be anywhere near the front line to begin with. If you're using em as if they were AFV's, they are already way too close.

It was the quickest example, but many German Halftracks come without an integral gunner. Instant No-LoS

Just now in a game I'm moving a 251/2 so that the ammo is nearer the mortar. Will it drive into trouble ... can't tell.

Obviously like many ... niggly .. issues, it's not a deal-breaker, but it IS annoying and again, more time consuming.

[Glubokii Boy]

If i have not missunderstod something completelly

I would like to se a major remake of the mission editors SUPPORT TARGET function...(i hope i have this wrong othervise i truely don't understand this design decision)

This is how i understand how it works

- You could set up 20 AI targetzones (VERY GOOD !)

but...

- These only work as preplanned bombardments during the start of the scenario. The designer have no ability to set an AI artillery target to start for example 5 minutes into the battle.

- Currently the scenariodesigner have no influence of wich targetzone the AI will target in this preplanned bombbarment. Lets say you have placed 4 targetzones on the map.

Sometimes the AI will taget zone 2 and 3, sometimes only zone 1 and next time maybe all 4. I don't like this ! it makes it very difficult to get the AI to do what you intend them to do.

According to the manual the targetzones should be targeted in numerical order but that does not seem to work...wich zone gets targeted seems more or less random.

- The scenariodesigner have no influence over what support assets that will target a specific targetzone. Sometimes all AI guns will target one of the zones and sometimes

different guns will target different zones

What i would like to see is for the scenaridesigner to have more controll over the AI artillery.

- Asign startime to each targetzone

- the ability to pick what asset that will partisipate in wich targetzone (maybe asigning supportassets to a targetzone in a simular way that units are asigned to AI-groups and reinforcements now).

- Maybe these ideas will require some of the assets to be LOCKED to scripted targetzones and some that will be avaliable for the AI to use as it sees fit.

If these suggestions are 'over-used' in scenariodesign they might produce some strange reults if the designer guess wrong about the players movements but i'm sure that most designers would soon find a good balance.

If i have missunderrstood the current support target funtion i would be greatful for any corrections...

[Erwin]

"Just now in a game I'm moving a 251/2 so that the ammo is nearer the mortar. Will it drive into trouble ... can't tell."

Don't want to belabor the point, but in RL mortars should also be way back out of harm's way. A transport halftrack is not supposed to be used differently than a truck. I agree that in the rather small CM2 scenarios that's harder. But, generally mortars can be left in their safe set-up areas as there is rarely any safer place to move em.

Depends on individual situation of course.

[A Canadian Cat]

Talking about LOS: Steel Armour - Blaze Of War has a cool feature. If you click on a certain vehicle or infantry unit and the click on the "LOS-check" button, all areas the unit has LOS onto are highlighted in, erm, purple IIRC. It looks a bit like the target armour command does in CMx2 2.0.

Let me start by saying in general this sounds like a good idea and it could be useful.

Now comes the however. The current LOS tool uses unit to ground viewing as its test. This type of technique will *not* verify that your unit will stay out of trouble. As an example I have a game going on right now where I have a StugIII that is 700m ish away from a corner of a bocage field where the ground dips. There is a natural area for the enemy to drive into this dip and my opponent is obliging. From where the Stug is located it has *no LOS* to the ground in this dip. That means the infantry screen that led into that area could not see the Stug and the Stug could not see them. But once the area was "safe" my opponents tanks rolled in. He now has three destroyed tanks sitting in the dip.

For LOS detection I think we would be better served with improvements to the current LOS tool to accommodate heights. I would like to be able to tell, using the tool, if my unit can see the ground, or if they could see a small vehicle or see higher vehicle at that location.

[Michael Emrys]

For LOS detection I think we would be better served with improvements to the current LOS tool to accommodate heights. I would like to be able to tell, using the tool, if my unit can see the ground, or if they could see a small vehicle or see higher vehicle at that location.

Amen. And if the current system does not already account for the observer's height above the ground, that would be a useful improvement. Men lying prone are different from men kneeling are different from men moving or standing in a crouch are different from men standing upright are different from men in various vehicles. I know that's a lot to take into account when it comes to writing code, but it would be nice to have.

Now if we really want to get into it, how about men who have climbed into trees?

Michael

[A Canadian Cat]

Now if we really want to get into it, how about men who have climbed into trees?

Men in Trees that sounds familiar where have I heard that before?

[majorbly50]

african campaign modules i wanna see and play with the Grant tank.

[nachinus]

african campaign modules i wanna see and play with the Grant tank.

Crusaders are my personal favourite. They are useless, but boy do they look cool.

[poesel]

Could this 'target line is always drawn from unit and not from selected waypoint' thing please be fixed? Has been wished a thousand times from 5 minutes after CMBN was released and is for some reason terribly difficult to do and of course you get used to every thing but: puuuhlease fix it nonetheless!

It just looks terrible.

[womble]

Could this 'target line is always drawn from unit and not from selected waypoint' thing please be fixed? Has been wished a thousand times from 5 minutes after CMBN was released and is for some reason terribly difficult to do and of course you get used to every thing but: puuuhlease fix it nonetheless!

It just looks terrible.

Concur completely. It also makes finding target lines unnecessarily difficult, since you can't tell what is obscuring your LOS from the selected waypoint.

[Michael Emrys]

Concur completely. It also makes finding target lines unnecessarily difficult, since you can't tell what is obscuring your LOS from the selected waypoint.

Yeah, +1 to this one too.

Michael

[fabiovir]

flamethrowers, fixed bayonet,

[costard]

Let me start by saying in general this sounds like a good idea and it could be useful.

Now comes the however. The current LOS tool uses unit to ground viewing as its test. This type of technique will *not* verify that your unit will stay out of trouble. As an example I have a game going on right now where I have a StugIII that is 700m ish away from a corner of a bocage field where the ground dips. There is a natural area for the enemy to drive into this dip and my opponent is obliging. From where the Stug is located it has *no LOS* to the ground in this dip. That means the infantry screen that led into that area could not see the Stug and the Stug could not see them. But once the area was "safe" my opponents tanks rolled in. He now has three destroyed tanks sitting in the dip.

This is why I like the system as it is - I can make some educated guesses as to where I can site a gun that will reliably see vehicles and possibly remain invisible to the foot sloggers. If I get it right and he gets it wrong, he loses three shermans before he realises he has problem.

Terrain analysis is the player's problem, not the game's - the game does as good a job of physically mapping 3 dimensional ballistics as any out there.

[jhmorneau]

Could this 'target line is always drawn from unit and not from selected waypoint' thing please be fixed?

Dead on !

I's funny how one can cope with the weirdest things as long as one gets his kicks with a game. I've gotten used to it, like many others on this forum, but man, this is a such a pain in the butt ! Thanks for reminding us ;-)

[poesel]

Probably a big wish but Christmas is getting closer, so...

I would like to be able to separately choose the mode of movement and the reaction to enemies.

Currently this is baked together (go fast->more likely to ignore enemy, go slow->immediate reaction) combined with covered arcs.

If these were separate modes you could choose for movement (example) crawl, sneak, march, run or sprint. For reaction (example): scout, cautious, return fire, open fire, ignore.

Movement modes are self explanatory. 'Scout' would mean stop & hide on enemy contact. 'Cautious' means stop on contact. 'Return fire' is fire if you get suppressed. 'Open fire' is fire on contact. 'Ignore' is ignore enemies and get to waypoint. There are possibly better categories than those but I hope you get the gist.

Translated to the current system:

'Move' = 'March' & 'Open fire'

'Quick' = 'Run' & 'Return fire'

'Fast' = 'Fast' & 'Ignore'

'Hunt' and 'Crawl' are similar to 'Move'.

Things like 'Sneak'&'Scout' are currently not possible. Or 'Fast'&'Cautious'. Things that could be quite handy often times.

The downside is of course that you might need an additional click for a move order.

[Michael Emrys]

One minor wish: Fairly trivial but would be appreciated. I would like to see the ambient temperature given in Fahrenheit as well as Centigrade degrees. I know most of the world uses °C, but I don't and it is not natural for me. I expect the same is true for most of the US customers, and since we make up a big portion of the buyer base... Not a deal breaker by a long shot, so maybe one of those things you might address "when you can get a round tuit". But it bugs me every time I start a game, so I thought I'd mention it.

Michael

[womble]

One minor wish: Fairly trivial but would be appreciated. I would like to see the ambient temperature given in Fahrenheit as well as Centigrade degrees. I know most of the world uses °C, but I don't and it is not natural for me. I expect the same is true for most of the US customers, and since we make up a big portion of the buyer base... Not a deal breaker by a long shot, so maybe one of those things you might address "when you can get a round tuit". But it bugs me every time I start a game, so I thought I'd mention it.

Michael

It shouldn't be too hard to have a toggle for the ingame units. Then you could have ranges in millileagues if you wanted

[Michael Emrys]

It shouldn't be too hard to have a toggle for the ingame units. Then you could have ranges in millileagues if you wanted

Funny. Except that the ASs are calibrated in metric and it would be awkward to convert to any other system (cubits, rods, etc.). And anyway, a toggle really isn't necessary for what I am asking. A simple xC/xF notation in the conditions panel would suffice. I wouldn't even expect it to be precise down to the last decimal.

BTW, while on the subject of ambient temperatures, do the ones in the games seem abnormally high to anyone but me? Summer '44 in Normandy was cloudy and rainy a lot and the soldiers were wearing woolen battledress, often with jackets as well. Italy would have been warmer in the summer, especially at the lower altitude, but winter in the mountains was freezing cold.

Michael